Tag: family

Rescued Memories

During the most isolating months of the pandemic, I spent a good deal of time down at my dad’s place.

Together with my youngest son, we dug through and sorted out generations of stuff and memories.

I’ve surrounded myself in my own home with bits and pieces from these treasures that speak courage and history to my heart. They tell a tale of lives lived, love passed down and hard work, endurance and faith.

It helps to know where you come from.

❤

Most folks want antiques that can fetch a high price or at least an envious look from those who wish they were so fortunate to have them.

Not me.

I want the things that have passed through the hands and speak to the work of those I’ve loved-the worn down, worn out relics of lives well lived and hearts poured into the next generation.

Read the rest here: Rescuing Memories

Celebrations After Child Loss-Life at the Crossroads of Joy and Sorrow

I want to be everything my living children need me to be.  

I try hard to celebrate them, be available, listen closely and love them well.  

I never, ever want them to feel they are competing with their missing brother for my affection or my attention.  

But I’d be lying if I said it was always easy.  

Read the rest here: Crossroads: Celebrations After Child Loss

Seriously-Just SAY It.

I try not to pull the “life’s short” or “you never know” card on people very often.

But there are lots of times I want to.

When you’ve said a casual good-bye to a loved one thinking it’s not that big of a deal only to find out the last time was The LAST Time, you learn not to let things go unsaid or unmended.

It’s never too late to begin the habit of speaking love, blessing and encouragement to important people in your life.

Even if it makes them (or you!) uncomfortable.

Maybe especially then.

❤

I’m not sure when I began practicing this but I make a habit of telling people I love them even if it makes them uncomfortable.

promise me something tell them you love them

Read the rest here: Just. Say. It.

Reminiscing

I’m at my dad’s place this weekend for a family funeral.

My great-aunt, the last of seven adult siblings in my grandmother’s family left for Heaven in April. So cousins from around the country are gathering to honor our family legacy and remember, remember, remember.

It’s hit my particularly vulnerable heart (Dominic’s birthday is May 28) hard, hard, hard.

I wake up each morning in the the home where my great-grandparents, my grandparents and my mama lived. My dad still lives here. So. much. life. has transpired within these walls.

Death has been here too.

Grandpapa Cox was laid out in the living room. I remember looking down on him lying there and asking what he was doing, stiff and still in that box.

When I sat in the pew next to more than two dozen folks with whom I share DNA I thought about the hymns and prayers lifted in the little country church we’d all attended at various times. I pictured my gray-haired greatgrandmother, Mama Eva, sitting in the corner by the window-her daughters next to her. I saw my own mama’s casket centered below the pulpit, her hands holding the white rose and Dominic’s photograph.

And here we all are writing new stories while carrying chapters from the old ones with us into the future.

People say, “Let’s not wait until the next funeral to get together” but we almost always do. The most complete family photos tend to be at sad events when folks are compelled to show up and don’t dare offer feeble excuses for not coming.

We have our share of photos from the past couple days. Cousins now lined up with gray hair and laugh lines just like our parents and grandparents before us.

One thing I’ve learned from death is this: you can’t stop time no matter how badly you might wish you could.

For those of us who have experienced child loss we not only mourn what we once had and knew but what we will never have and never know. We lost a future as well as a past.

I’m thankful that most of my folks tend to live long lives and leave for Heaven at a ripe old age.

I’m so sorry that Dominic wasn’t one of them.

Today I’ll breathe and rest and digest the old memories and the new ones.

I’m thankful these good-byes aren’t final.

I’m thankful I’ll see the ones I love sooner than I might imagine.

If You Can’t Say Anything Nice (Well, You Know the Rest).

I’ll be the first to admit I’m sassy and sometimes salty.

Popping off a quick one-liner (sometimes at the expense of another) was a dinner table past time when our family included four teens.

But it’s one thing to have inside jokes with those I know well and quite another to blast a stranger or a social media only “friend” because they *dare* to post something that goes against my pet opinion or viewpoint.

One of the things I adore about the online bereaved parent community is how individuals overwhelmingly respond with grace, kindness, thoughtfulness and space for different experiences and opinions.

I wish the rest of the world operated the same way! Maybe we need to revive that old saying: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

❤

There may be some mamas that don’t drill this into their children but if there are, they don’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Every time there was back and forth in the back seat or on the front porch and Mama overheard, we were told, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

Read the rest here: If You Can’t Say Anything Nice….

Mother’s Day 2022: A Letter to My Living Children

I shared this for the first time five years ago.

Before my mother’s illness and death, before the frighteningly early arrival of our little Captain and the less-frightening and less early arrival of his brother, LT, before an overseas deployment, a destructive hurricane, Covid19, and too many other stressful events to list.

I have watched my kids meet every challenge-sometimes with grace, sometimes with grit, sometimes with both.

They are different people than they would have been if Dominic still walked beside us. They know things their peers can’t even guess.

We all lost so much when we lost Dom. But we still have each other.

And that’s a treasure.

❤

I never thought it possible to love you more than I already did.

But I do.

Your brother’s untimely departure has opened my heart in a whole new way to the glory that is your presence.  It has made me drink you in like water in the desert.

Read the rest here:  A Letter To My Living Children*

Five Ways You Can Support a Grieving Parent and Their Family

In yesterday’s post I confessed I can look for excuses not to reach out.

When I feel like what I may say or do might make things worse instead of better it’s particularly intimidating.

Child loss is a uniquely challenging event for friends and family and even when someone longs to “be there” for the bereaved parents or siblings, they are often afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing.

So here are five very practical, very helpful ways to support a grieving parent and their family.

❤ Melanie

It’s oh, so hard to know what to do when you are watching a heart break.

You want to reach out and make it better, make the pain go away, make a difference.  But it seems like nothing you can do will matter much in the face of such a huge loss.

While it’s true that you cannot “fix”  the brokenness in a bereaved parent’s life, there are some very important and practical ways you can support them in their grief.

Read the rest here: Five Practical Ways to Support a Grieving Parent

Grief is a Family Affair: Tips for Interacting With Bereaved Families

I think the mama is often the first person others think about when they hear a child has run ahead to Heaven.

But child loss affects dads too.

And it’s often sibling loss as well.

Grief is truly a family affair-each member is changed by the experience and they ALL need support.

❤

I firmly believe that our friends and extended family want to reach out, want to help, want to walk alongside as we grieve the death of our child

 I am also convinced that many of them don’t because they don’t know how.  

It may seem unfair that in addition to experiencing our loss, we also have to educate others on how to help us as we experience it, but that’s just how it is.

The alternative is to feel frustrated and abandoned or worse.  

Read the rest here: Child Loss: Helpful Tips for Interacting With Bereaved Families

The Greatest Gift: Say His Name!

It’s nearly impossible for anyone who has not lost the earthly companionship of a child to know how desperately I long to hear Dominic’s name spoken aloud.

There are days I walk around my home and think silently and even whisper quietly, “You existed! You exist!” just to remind my heart he is real.

You may hesitate to bring him up because you fear my tears. But any tears his name might evoke will be tears of gratitude as well as those of longing.

Please say his name!

❤

I know you are afraid.

You think that speaking his name or sharing a memory or sending me a photo will add to my sorrow.

I understand.

But even when it costs me a split second of sharp pain, it is truly a gift to know that Dominic lives on in the hearts and minds of others.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Just Say His Name

Love Poured Out: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Child Loss

I am well aware that not everyone is blessed by an outpouring of love and support in the wake of child loss. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some families are practically shunned.

It breaks my heart every time I hear of such an experience.

Because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this Valley, it’s this: when a heart is shattered, my ONLY job is to show up and do whatever is helpful-even if that means sitting silently and holding a hand.

❤

When I asked other bereaved parents to share the things people did that blessed them in the wake of losing a child, I didn’t expect so many stories of extravagant love–of acts surpassing anything I could have thought of or imagined.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.

When we lost Dominic, there were many who blessed us in ways that I can only describe as offerings poured into our lives from the bountiful love of Christ.

Read the rest here: Extravagant Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Losing a Child